Cuban reporter freed, flown to Madrid; 11 now released

New York, July 23,
2010—Reporter José
Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández was released from a Cuban jail and arrived today
in Madrid, becoming the 11th independent
journalist to be freed by the Havana government this month.

“My colleagues and I warmly hugged each other upon arrival, sharing
our happiness for regaining freedom and our sorrow for leaving Cuba,”
Izquierdo Hernández told CPJ in a telephone interview. “My dream of seeing my country
enjoying freedom of expression, as well as other rights, has not yet come true.
As a journalist, it’s been very painful to experience the lack of that
freedom.”

Izquierdo Hernández, who was serving a 16-year prison term imposed
in 2003, landed with his family around 1:30 p.m. local time on an Iberia flight,
the journalist said. He said he will move next week to Chile, where the government
offered him political asylum. “I am planning to take up my journalism career
once I arrive to my new destination,” Izquierdo Hernández said.

After talks with Cuba’s Catholic Church, the government of
President Raúl Castro agreed this month to free a total of 52 dissidents
arrested in the March 2003 government crackdown on political dissent and
independent journalism known as the Black Spring.
Nine journalists arrested during the 2003 crackdown remain in prison, as does
one other who was jailed later, according to CPJ research.

The government has not disclosed its plans to release the
other jailed journalists and dissidents.

Below is a CPJ capsule report on Izquierdo Hernández from
CPJ’s annual census of jailed journalists, conducted in December 2009.

Izquierdo Hernández, a reporter in
western Havana for the independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, was
sentenced in April 2003 to 16 years in prison for acting “against the
independence or the territorial integrity of the state” under Article 91 of the
penal code. Following an appeal the next month, the People’s Supreme Tribunal Court upheld his
conviction. In 2009, he was being held at the Guanajay Prison in his home
province.